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What is the most ridiculous thing you've seen in Sci Fi?

Sci Fi is, by its very nature, something that is fantastical. It must be or it becomes mundane. However, you sometimes see people overstep the bounds. So, what Sci Fi stupidity have you seen?

For designers, think of the things listed here as warning against your more outrageous, drunken imaginations!

I'll start with one of my own errors...

Thinking planet
A mechanical moon that was created as a self-sustaining object, which gained sentience. It was an error because upon seeing it, my players thought it was too dangerous to have about and blew it up.

One major blunder in games is accidentally giving people super-weapons. Any star ship that can reach 50% or more of the speed of light in real space (as opposed to alternate dimension hyperdrives, wormholes etc) can be classified as an anti-planet "Relativistic Kill Vehicle" that could make the KT even look like a popped balloon by comparison.

Anything powered by anti-matter is trouble. Most people's concepts of nuclear powersources are a bit off. Of note, Rifts seems to be populated by thousands of robots, railguns, and cyborgs with fission power sources - its amazing anyplace is still safe when you look at the rate these things are destroyed in combat.

There is a ton of mis-understandings about what cybernetics or bionics can do. For example, the arm may lift 250 kilos, but the shoulder its attached to probaly can't.

The Atomic Rocket site is a good resource in general, its list of is useful.

However, I think the biggest problem in SF games is... reading into the science.

I've had a lot of players who are too smart for their own good. One of my old friends is in grad school studying robotics and the basics of mind/machine interface. As such, we have gone through a bit of discussion of the actual physics and concepts present in these games.

As much as I love the implications of the technology and hope for what is coming next - at some point you need to turn off the rational brain and accept what is before you. Yes, there are a dozen good arguments as to why 60 foot tall robots cannot/will not be a good weapon - but for sheer cool factor and style, accept them in your game.

So far as I'm concerned, "Star Wars" is not SF, and "Star Trek" is rather poor at it. The stories that they tell, however, are exciting and classic. Trying to impose stark reality on imagnitive endevors is running cross purposes to the ultimate goal. Fun.

Too add to this...
*force fields....I wont go into the science lesson I got on them but in the end the amount of energy it would take to create a field that did half of what they've been made out to do, could throw a planet out of align ment. "its up and working doc...*ZAP* um is it getting colder too you?"
*planetary energy guns.... I lazers while extremly popular in sci-fi lose a tremendese amount of power in an attmospher due too partical in the air, gasses, etc.

in the end it is science FICTION, they have to put something unreal to them. its the law...hehe


oh and chainsaw your right Star wars is not SCI-FI...it classification (god I hate my spelling) is science Fantasy. Basicly sci-fi+ magic......

Chainsaw, thanks for that link. It's fantastic and i'm sending it to all the SF nerds I know!

I once watched a sci-fi movie in which the space ship was a model of a uterus with ovaries. There was no reason for it. It wasn't a particularly feminist movie. It was just one of those extremely cheaply made sci-fi films and I guess the art director (who was probably the teenage son of the producer and had just seen this in biology class) thought nobody would notice.

For game blunders, I was once part of a group of players that decided we would all make up inventors of one sort or another for Space 1889, and when we presented our characters to the GM he almost got angry at us. We had worked together so that we could start the game with what was essentially a Klingon War Bird.

SheikhJahbooty, if there was a competition for strangest thing, I think you would have won!

Why would anyone do that?

Who on Earth thought that was actually a good idea. At least SciFi is possible to pronounce for English speakers. SyFy is just bizarre!

I know this is my first post here but I really agree most sci fi is heavy on the fi and light on the sci .than again it is meant to entertain not so much educate .

It's a great first post. How about expanding on your opinion on a new forum topic?

And welcome to 1KM1KT!